JCL

During drinks and hanging out with the other .Net bloggers in NYC, the strangest of topics came up, JCL. Anyone under 30 probably has no idea what JCL is/was (not my quote), but it stands for Job Control Language, and it is used on IBM Mainframes to control batch job processing. There were only two of us there that had any idea of what it was, the rest were baffled. JCL had to be one of the funkiest “languages” I’ve ever learned (and one of the first). Any language that uses reverse logic should buried and forgotten. JCL if statement equivalent has no associated else, and the statements within the if only run when test is NOT true. How wacked is that?


DonXML

[Listening to: She Was Dead - Sr-71 ]

9 Comments

  • So if we had:



    If cond1 then

    S1

    Else

    S2

    End If



    would be translated in JCL to:



    If Not cond1 then S1

    If cond1 then S2



    ??? Odd.

  • I slept through that class (or just didn't show up to much).

  • OMG!! I'm 24...and I know WAY to much about damn JCL!!! I've spent the last year trying to forget everything about it...until I saw your JCL header...and now I know the nightmares will return!!!! Ahhhhh!

  • I agree with "Ex-Mainframe Programmer"...I'm only 22 and JCL and COBOL were requirements in my Computer Science degree. I guess its because I went to Illinois State Univ., where State Farm's HQ is...which they fund a TON of $$ to ISU's courses...



    All I do know, is that COBOL, JCL, and Mainframes in general suck.

  • I think it's an epidemic...not too many collegs keep "up to date" on technology.

  • JCL, I loved JCL! I worked with it for six years! Gotta love SYNCSORT what about EASYTRIEVE or invoking IKJEFT01 as program to issue TSO commands in batch job!



    //N800JAA JOB

    //STEP001 EXEC PGM=IKJEFTO1

    //



    It has been awhile! Oh an umm I am 30 been about 4 years since I have done JCL so that would put me at 26-27 when I was using it!

  • Heck, it's still being used!

    *sigh* don't even ask...

  • Hey, there were computers, systems and applications before the web... it's all about evolution. The reverse logic behind the IF statement was always baffling tho.



    First there was JCL, then there was Java..







  • Still being used...

    Heck - It's still proliferating. There are MILLIONS of lines of the stuff on most IBM mainframes...

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